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First Blood: War veteran John Rambo is passing through a small town when he gets harassed by the local law enforcement. After being arrested, he makes his way into the forest where he wages battle on the police.

Rambo First Blood Part 2: Rambo is enlisted to rescue some prisoners of war in Vietnam. With the help of some locals, Rambo wages war on Vietnam for his country.

Rambo III: Rambo is asked to rescue his mentor in Afghanistan. Rambo wages war on the Russians for the fun of it…err…to rescue his friend.

IS IT A GOOD MOVIE?

I just noticed that none of the Rambo films are named sequentially. They all have different titles. Weird.

First Blood (3.5 Stars): Rambo has become a bit of a joke in pop culture and therefore people sometimes forget how good the first film really is. It’s not a gratuitous action film like its sequels. It’s an intelligent action/drama that has a complex and sad lead character. You feel for him as he’s bullied by the police and you root for him even if you can’t relate to what he’s going through. If you haven’t seen the first Rambo film in a while, do yourself a favor and check it out again.

Rambo First Blood Part 2 (3 Stars): As good as the first one is, the second one starts to turn into an excuse for Stallone to blow stuff up. That’s not a bad thing, but the genuine charm is starting to fade and we’re thrown too many worthless subplots. I watched this with someone that had never seen it before and they laughed several times that weren’t intended to be funny. I still enjoy it, but it doesn’t hold up well to today’s standards.

Rambo III (2 Stars): Now we’re not even trying anymore. Let’s just get Stallone’s shirt off, give him a big f’n knife and gun and let him kill people. It works at times, but the bad guys are over the top and the dialogue is almost painful to listen to. I still love the opening stick fight, which serves no purpose by the way. It’s fun to watch Stallone in his heyday kick some commie butt, but as a movie it tends to make you cringe.

THE EXTRAS

FIRST BLOOD

Out of the Blu Trivia Track: I love trivia tracks. It feels like a giant episode of VH1’s Pop Up Video. This one is pretty good, but every “pop-up” makes an annoying sound when it comes up. However, the facts are interesting and I had a good time watching it.

Commentary with Sylvester Stallone: Stallone’s a cool guy and much like people forget about FIRST BLOOD, people forget how cool Stallone is. He gives a great commentary and pops off plenty of great tidbits and interesting facts. It’s crazy to think Stallone almost passed on this role. Anyway, this is a great commentary.

Commentary with David Morrell: It’s hard to follow up Stallone’s commentary, but Morrell gives a decent commentary himself. He talks a lot more about the deeper meaning in the film, which I had never thought of, such as the Democratic-Republican representation in the film and the differences between good and evil.

Documentary: Drawing First Blood (22:35): This is more of a lighthearted look at the film, but at the same time they dive into the darker themes in the film. It’s a basic featurette, but it’s very interesting and a good look at an older film.

Deleted Scenes (5:33): Meh, these were all worthy of being cut. There was a nice scene with Rambo and the Colonel, but even that wouldn’t have worked in the film. Overall, these weren’t very good.

RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2

Out of the Blu Trivia: Same kind of thing as the first one, complete with the annoying sounds, but also with the cool facts. This one is just as good as the first one.

We Get to Win This Time Documentary (20:04): This is very similar to the featurette on the first film. The coolest thing is that James Cameron wrote a first draft of the script, which I did not know. This is pretty cool and is more than worth the time.

RAMBO III

Out of the Blu Trivia: Once again, we get the same, cool trivia track with the annoying sounds.

Land in Crisis (29:48): This one gets a little preachy, which fits in well with the film. Afghanistan tends to only have one association with Americans and this is a good reminder that the country is actually very important to Asia and the Middle East. This featurette is good for a history lesson, but doesn’t actually tell us too much about the film.

There are also some Previews

FINAL DIAGNOSIS

The Rambo films are fun. I’m disappointed some of the special features were left off the Blu-ray release, but if you don’t have them yet, this is a nice set to add to your Blu-ray collection. And yes, we get to win this time.